{"id":1602,"date":"2013-05-05T10:19:40","date_gmt":"2013-05-05T14:19:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ae0.92e.myftpupload.com\/?p=1602"},"modified":"2013-05-05T10:21:06","modified_gmt":"2013-05-05T14:21:06","slug":"not-the-kentucky-derby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/?p=1602","title":{"rendered":"Not the Kentucky Derby…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"CCF04072013_00002\"<\/a>…but something even better, Polo in The Villages.\u00a0 Polo is a seasonal phenomena, much like snowbirds the players travel from all over the country and even the world to participate in our spring and fall seasons.\u00a0 The Polo Club recently celebrated their 15th Year Anniversary calling it their best year ever!\u00a0 They had more teams and more matches than ever with 30,000 dedicated fans\u00a0and a Booster Club with over 1000 members.\u00a0 I’ve attended a few Polo matches but unlike baseball and football I don’t understand the rules and therefore not sure who to cheer for or\u00a0as far as that goes, when even to cheer. \u00a0 It still was enjoyable as it is very exciting to see the horses\u00a0with their\u00a0riders running full tilt\u00a0down the field and stopping almost on a dime, to race back just as fast in the other direction.\u00a0 However\u00a0 when I wanted to write about Polo I spent some time researching it and I am going to start being one of those enthusiastic fans.\u00a0 I learned some fascinating things:\u00a0 Horses used in Polo are referred to as ‘ponies’ but they are full grown horses – usually thoroughbreds because of their speed, endurance and intelligence.\u00a0 I can understand they need speed as the ball travels 100 miles an hour after being hit by the side of the mallet, they do not hit the ball like you would in croquet on the front.\u00a0 100 miles an hour!\u00a0\u00a0The size of a Polo field is: four City blocks or nine football fields or 32 Olympic size pools or 720 tractor trailers end to end. And The Villages has two fields, that is certainly something to be proud of.\u00a0 It takes 15 tons of sand to repair divots after one game on a field and if you were going to mow it with a standard push mower you would\u00a0have to walk 55 miles.\u00a0 They have a very active Booster Club and something more than that, that is not normal for Polo Clubs,\u00a0is they have\u00a0cheerleaders.\u00a0 In order to be one you must be 55+ and backflips and pyramids are not part of any routine.\u00a0 I had a hard time doing them in my heyday, can’t imagine trying to do them now.\u00a0 It is not a normal occurrence to have cheerleaders so attendees from other clubs are very surprised when they come to The Villages.\u00a0 Even the players that come for the first time, \u00a0are overwhelmed\u00a0by the amount of fans in attendance and their unbridled enthusiasm.\u00a0 The fans\u00a0tailgate from their golf carts before the matches and that is another unbridled habit we all enjoy…eating and after stomping out divots in between matches the Boosters enjoy a glass of champagne,\u00a0another enjoyable habit.\u00a0 I highly recommend you\u00a0go to the following websites and read more about the sport.\u00a0 I’m sure it will peek your curiousity and maybe become an avid fan too.\u00a0 The Booster Club gives classes so that you can be knowledgeable…Polo 101, 102, etc…what a great opportunity to really learn.\u00a0\u00a0If you go to www.thevillagespoloclub.com<\/a> you can\u00a0read all about it and also you can navigate at the top menu to The\u00a0Booster Club and on the left side menu to\u00a0The Villages Polo Magazine. Enjoy and tally-ho.\u00a0 Oh wait,\u00a0I don’t think they say that for polo, just fox hunting….anyway, there’s two matches today, one at 12 noon and one at 2:00 pm, open to Villagers and general public.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\"CCF04072013_00001\"<\/a>\u00a0Hurry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…but something even better, Polo in The Villages.\u00a0 Polo is a seasonal phenomena, much like snowbirds the players travel from all over the country and even the world to participate in our spring and fall seasons.\u00a0 The Polo Club recently celebrated their 15th Year Anniversary calling it their best year ever!\u00a0 They had more teams […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1602"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1609,"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1602\/revisions\/1609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}